Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/161

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The Navaho Origin Legend.
133

eyes, and other trophies of my enemies.” “It is not well,” said Tsóhanoai, “that the bodies of these great creatures should lie where they fell; I shall have them buried near the corpse of Yéitso. (He got the holy ones to carry the corpses to San Mateo and hide them under the blood of Yéitso, and this is the reason we do not see them lying all over the land now, but sometimes see them sticking out of the rocks.)159 He took the trophies and the armor and said: “These I shall carry back to my house in the east and keep them safe. If you ever need them again, come and get them.” Promising to come back again in four days, and meet Estsánatlehi on the top of Tsolíhi, he departed.

371. At the end of four days Estsánatlehi went to the top of Tsolíhi and sat down ona rock. Tsóhanoai came, sat beside her, and sought to embrace her; but she avoided him, saying: “What do you mean by this? I want none of your embraces.” “It means that I want you for my own,” said the bearer of the Sun. “I want you to come to the west and make a home for me there.” “ But I do not wish to do so,” said she. "What right have you to ask me?” “Have I not given your boys the weapons to slay the alien gods?” he inquired, and added: “I have done much for you: now you must reward me.” She replied, “I never besought you to do this. You did not do it on my account; you did it of your own good will, and because your sons asked you.” He urged another reason: “When Nayénézgani visited me in the east, he promised to give you to me.” “What care I for his promise?” she exclaimed; “I am not bound by it. He has no right to speak for me.” Thus four times she repulsed him. When he pleaded for the fifth time, saying: “Come to the west and make a home for me,” she said: “Let me hear first all you have to promise me. You have a beautiful house in the east. I have never seen it, but I have heard how beautiful it is. I want a house just the same built for me in the west; I want to have it built floating on the water, away from the shore, so that in the future, when people increase, they will not annoy me with too many visits. I want all sorts of gems—white shell, turquoise, haliotis, jet, soapstone, agate, and redstone—planted around my house, so that they will grow and increase. Then I shall be lonely over there and shall want something to do, for my sons and my sister will not go with me. Give me animals to take along. Do all this for me and I shall go with you to the west.” He promised all these things to her, and he made elk, buffalo, deer, long-tail deer, mountain sheep, jack-rabbits, and prairie-dogs to go with her.

372. When she started for her new home the Hadáhonestiddĭne‘ and the Hadáhonigedĭne‘, two tribes of divine people,160 went with